A golden opportunity: A balancing act

1. A golden opportunity:A balancing act Repositioning the library in the light of VELS Kris Johnstone, Sacre Coeur

2. “The extent to which a school library can effectively meet the needs of learners and educators within the school is determined by the levels of collaboration with the rest of the school community”. Start with the Child. Charted Institute of Library and Information Professionals . Report 2002

3. VELS driven Pedagogy • Focus on process not content • Leads to greater emphasis on: • Information Literacy • Information Skills • Thinking Skills • Student engagement • Students controlling their own learning

4. Teacher-Librarian Role Validated • New learning outcomes are how we have always talked about the library • Principles of Learning and Teaching /Life-Long Learning • Greater recognition of the cross curriculum skills which students require • Autonomous Learners who can apply their knowledge beyond the classroom • Content knowledge used to foster deep understanding/intellectual quality • Transformative: developing and transforming prior knowledge, skills, attitudes, values: conceptual change

5. Challenges • Students controlling their own learning • Freeing up assignment design process to allow for much more student input • Teaching thinking • Freeing up assessment to allow student ownership • Development of proforma to support above • Integrating ICTs • What a PoLT classroom/library looks like

6. Focus at Sacre Coeur • Leadership in curriculum • Staff professional development • Information Literacy/ A Thinking Environment • Assignment Design • ICTs • Wide-reading programmes

7. Leadership in curriculum • Expertise in Interdisciplinary (Thinking Processes, ICT), and Personal Learning • Implementing a Thinking Curriculum • Course Auditing and Documentation • Curriculum support

8. Desktop Kris Johnstone, Sacre Coeur

9. Resource promotion

10. VELS Specific Staff PD • Whole staff VELS Introduction July 2005 • Catholic School Curriculum Co-ordinators • VELS and Assessment

11. Skills Focus Staff PD • New Websites and Search Engines • focus on sites that can readily be adapted to the requirements of VELS – Information Literacy, Thinking Skills, Rubrics etc • Creative Questions for Extended Brainstorming • Making A difference • Researching together Science 2007 • Plagiarism SOSE Dec 2006

12. What Next? • Learning Federation • My Classes • ICTs and Assessment – July 2007

13. Information Literacy • Principles of learning and teaching • Thinking processes • Thinking about your thinking and learning • Multiple intelligences and thinking skills charts displayed in every classroom – and the library • A common language • Posters tailored to the class level • Graphic Organizers • Effective Questioning • Teaching Strategies: Costa’s Habits of Mind, Thinkers Keys, PEEL, MI learner profile, teaching and assessment tools, etc • Thinking Bibliography in library catalogue • An insert in the student diary from the library which focuses on the information process • ICT

14. A Thinking Environment Thinking skills programmes • Scope and Sequence • Hawthorndene Primary School • http://www.hthdeneps.sa.edu.au/workshop/ • Essex Heights Primary School • http://www.essexheightsps.vic.edu.au/thinking_oriented_curriculum.htm • Dalby South State School • http://www.dalbsoutss.qld.edu.au/documents/thinking_continuum1.pdf

15. Athena

16. Syba Signs Kris Johnstone, Sacre Coeur

19. Assignment Design • What needs to be included • “Now my head hurts” • A thinking skills framework • Rubrics and the whole assessment thing

20. Student engagement • Students retain: • •10% of what they read • •20% of what they hear • •30% of what they see • •50% of what they see and hear [media/film] • •70% of what they say • •90% of what they say and do Rief, Sandra F. 1993, p. 53.

21. Student engagement • Do-able assignments • Questioning is the key • “Smart questions are essential technology…It is this questioning process that holds the greatest promise for change and improvement” Jamie McKenzie • All about students building understanding rather than content knowledge

22. Ancient Egypt redone • Opening up the questions • From notetaking to rubrics • Reflecting on their learning

23. Rubrics/Assessment • Group reflection • Archaeology Year Seven • Research rubrics • Rubric to assess your rubric • Link to Assessment PD

24. Digging Deeper with Self Assessment (from Munns and Woodward, 2005), Hildebrand 06

25. Inter-disciplinary Learning /ICT • Ian Webb- Levels of effective use – culminating in Transforming when: • “ICT is not only integral to the teaching and learning process, but it is also a catalyst for the transformation of pedagogy, what and how students learn and the organization and structure itself”. (Australian Educational Computing, Vol20.No1.June 2005 p.3) • Challenge is :How best to encourage and support effective use?

26. Webb’s four stages • Emerging • Adopting • Infusing • Transforming

27. ICT in the classroom • LFTF Matrix • Blogs, Wikis etc • Ipods etc,etc,etc

28. Technology Committee • Interactive whiteboards • Hardware review • Forum for discussion • ICT and Information Literacy

29. Wide-reading programmes • ICT integration and Multimodal texts • THE Shakespeare quiz • Newspapers • The story of Tom Brennan – Video/newspapers • Biography – Chrissie Amphlett • Inside a dog

30. Standards of Professional Excellence for Teacher Librarians • 1.3 Knowledge of curriculum • have a comprehensive understanding of literacy, literature for children and young adults, curriculum and specific programs in their schools • have a sound understanding of current assessment theory and processes • 2.1 Learning environment • create and nurture an information-rich learning environment which supports the needs of the school community

31. Standards of Professional Excellence for Teacher Librarians • 2.2 Learning and teaching • collaborate with teachers to plan and implement information literacy and literature programs that result in positive student learning outcomes • assist individual learners to develop independence in their learning • teach the appropriate and relevant use of ICTs and information resources • 3.1 Lifelong learning • empower others in the school community to become lifelong learners • create and foster library-related professional development opportunities for staff

32. Advocacy http://www.schoollibrariesadvocacy.org.uk/toolkit/making_a_difference.pdf

33. Advocacy http://www.schoollibrariesadvocacy.org.uk/toolkit/making_a_difference.pdf

34. When……Be there! • maisonbisson.com/blog/post/10990/